Near the End of May

One night around the end of May, I bought some Sake at a local liquor store. Basically, I did it all, or most of it, in Japanese -- but with some twists. All day, I practiced what I would say and then, after finding the store, I marched in and said to a clerk, in my now very well-practiced Japanese, "Where is the Sake?" The translation is: "Wa Sake-o, doko desuka?" He gave me a look like "Okay, here is yet another American trying to speak Japanese and not doing a very good job of it" and pointed to the Sake isle. The problem was that if I had looked around the store when I came in, I would have seen the Sake bottles since I was only standing 3 feet from where all the bottles were located. It was clear that this was Sake, not wine or beer. He was kind, but his look gave away his true feelings. So, I shopped for Sake and looked at the beer too. Japan has excellent beers.

At this store, they had a ceramic crock and small, plastic cups nearby. This was for use by customers in tasting the Sake that was in the ceramic crock. So, I tasted it and liked it a great deal. The label, indicating the brand name and type of Sake, was posted nearby. The problem was that I could not find any of this brand's bottles. So, emboldened by my newly found ability to speak Japanese, but limited in what I could really say, I asked another clerk where this Sake was located. To do this, since I didn't know the exact phrase, I held up the half-empty bottle and just said, "Where?"  To be fair, I think this young lady apparently thought I wanted to know where the Sake was made, not where a bottle of it was located. Thinking that, she started looking at the label (which had a map of an Island on it - I think Hokkaido in northern Japan) to see where it came from.

Not wanting to know where the Sake was from, I pointed to another brand and said, also in Japanese, "no" and then another, and said "no" again, and then asked her again in Japanese "Where?" If only I had known how to speak more complete sentences, I would have asked her "Where is this bottle" but basically I just kept saying "Where?" and holding the half-empty bottle of the brand I wanted.  As I went from bottle to bottle along a row of Sake bottles trying to show her that I didn't care about the other brands, I suddenly came upon a whole box of Sake bottles of the brand I wanted and pulled one out. Looking a little surprised, I smiled and said, in Japanese, "Thank you." She then said in perfect English "I hope you enjoy it" and walked off with a sly and all-knowing smile on her face. "Had was I" is about all I could think as I meekly, and very humbly, went to the check out line, silently paid for the Sake and some beer and left the store to be met by a very nice rain shower. Oh, well, at least Okinawa cried for me that day.